'Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened. I realised that to become an artist one must shed the whole complex of egotisms which led to the choice of self-expression as the only means of growth! This because it is impossible I call The Whole Joke!'"
-Lawrence Durrell

"often it is the only thing between you and impossibility. no drink, no woman's love, no wealth can match it. nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing. the hordes from closing in. it blasts the darkness. writing is the ultimate psychiatrist, the kindliest god of all the gods. writing stalks death. it knows no quit. and writing laughs at itself, at pain. it is the last expectation, the last explanation. that's what it is. "
- Charles Bukowski

"I have heard what the talkers were talking. The talk of the beginning and the end. But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now; And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now."
-Walt Whitman

"Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool's gold mouthpiece The hollow horn plays wasted words Proves to warn That he not busy being born Is busy dying."
-B. Dylan